Starlene

You’d think that being abducted by aliens would involve a trip in a spaceship and being strapped onto an operating table to be x-rayed and probed by some tiny green two-headed creatures who are looking to colonise earth and strip us of our resources in order to replenish their war ravished home planet.

That certainly wasn’t my experience, not at all, not at all. My captors simply wanted to learn how to play poker, so they took me off to this pub, the Kings Head, just behind the bus terminus, sat me at a table, fetched me a pint, and told me to shuffle the cards and start teaching. They were a pretty smart bunch (well, two brains apiece) and we soon graduated from playing with matches to hard cash. And they started winning. I thought they were dealing from the bottom of the deck or slipping aces up their sleeves (so many sleeves on so many arms) but I couldn’t catch them at it. At one point I said I was skint and had to withdraw but they suggested a cash-point and the opportunity to win it all back.

So I emptied both mine and Mary’s accounts. Fool thing to do. Lost it all.

They said, Thanks for teaching us. Dropped me off at the corner.

Mary didn’t believe the story. Threw me out. Forever. I’d had my last chance, she said.

I read about Abductees Anonymous, went to a meeting. We sat in a circle on hard straight-backed chairs, no obligation to say anything. Afterwards in the pub I said hello to Starlene.

It’s worked out for us. Happiness ever after. Who’d have thought it?